Black Web

The Death Of The Internet Has Been Greatly Exaggerated

The news, I’m afraid, is dire. The Internet is about to be destroyed by big media. It is about be killed by two Congressional bills – The ProtectIP and The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) – that all-powerful big media lobbyists are now pushing through Congress. These bills will censor the Internet, turn it into China, censor it, destroy its innovation and value.

“Big media is going nuclear against the DMCA,” thus writes the author and serial entrepreneur Ashkan Karbasfrooshan, arguing that ProtectIP and COPA will “spell the end of the Internet as we know it.” Techcrunch’s Devin Coldeway,describing SOPA as “possibly unconstitutional” and as a “kill switch”, says it is a “desperate power grab by a diminishing elite”. CNET columnist Molly Wood chimes in that SOPA is “brazen” and “nightmarish” and warns that it will result in a “copyright police state”. The Obama administration is “busy in bed with Hollywood,” she warns, “cheerfully ceding your rights to the MPAA and RIAA.”

Even the VCs are worried. Union Square Ventures’ Fred Wilson, argues that “these bills were written by the content industry without any input from the technology industry”. The problem, Wilsonexplains, is that “the content industry is not creating new jobs right now” and thus, by establishing a destructive legal environment for start-ups, SOPA and ProtectIP will supposedly “kill the golden goose to protect industries in decline.”

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